Porsche Boxster: When You Need a Great Escape

YOU'RE A RECENTLY retired senior government official and you're looking forward to a drive in the country. France, maybe.

What is your choice? What car would you choose if you were on the run, in Europe, with two federal pensions and about, oh, a month or two to kill? For the sake of the hypothetical and purely as a matter of speculation, assume you are not alone, you old dog.

Me? My answer is always the Hennessey Cadillac CTS-V wagon with a six-speed stick. Duh. However, I recognize there are other good candidates. They are both named Porsche.

Anyone with the means and a desire to get away from it all should take a look at Porsche's redesigned Boxster S, which Dan Neil on The News Hub says is a ripping good time. Photo: Dan Neil/The Wall Street Journal.

For serious people, the absolute best road-trip car will always come down to either the 911 Carrera, that ageless rear-engine Mephisto, recently sleekified and even more insanely fast, just an orgy of driver satisfaction; or the midengine Boxster S, which is by my reckoning exactly three-quarters the car that the 911 is, for exactly three-quarters the price. But it's a convertible.

Why these two? Stay with me. First, it has to be Porsche, right? For a million reasons. Out there in the real world, far from safe harbor, high-performance cars break down with surprising regularity and when they do, it's a pain. Let me tell you, when you're standing outside the hotel watching your scissor-door death machine get dragged up onto a flatbed, nobody feels sorry for you.

So you're going to want to privilege reliability. Porsches are bulletproof.

Second, it has to be a convertible, especially this time of year, when a dry, cold crown of air settles on the Dolomites. The place is a fantasyland of cliff-wrapping cutbacks and hairpins amid immortal ramparts and see-forever vistas. Here these Porsches' flat-six songs can be best heard, ricocheting off the snowy massifs and going maximally quadraphonic in long alpine tunnels. Your whole Italian Alps region is pretty happening, driving-wise.

What about a 911 4S Cabriolet? I'm sorry, no. Lopping off the roof of a 911 is design sacrilege. The root note in the 911's symphony of design, going back to
Ferdinand Porsche's
explorations of aerodynamics in the 1920s, was and is the functionally streamlined roof. As per Ledwinka, as per Ganz, as per Komenda, as per Rumpler. Sure, a ragtop 911 is sweet to drive, but it's a philistine's choice, not worthy of a connoisseur.

From a multitude of options, you see how easy it is to narrow to one: the Boxster S. I'll have it brought round for you, General.

Photos: The Getaway Car

Click to view slideshow Dan Neil/The Wall Street Journal

The 2013 redesign of the Boxster (code-named internally the 981), in brief: a 2.3-inch-longer wheelbase under a body stretched 1.3 inches; front overhang is trimmed an inch and front/rear track is wider by around 1.7/0.7 inches, depending on tires; torsional rigidity is up 40% while curb weight is down, 55 pounds for the base Boxster (2.7-liter flat six, 265 horsepower, a claimed 2,888 pounds, zero to 60 miles per hour in less than 5.5 seconds) and 77 pounds for the Boxster S (3.4-liter flat six, 315 hp, 2,910 pounds, <4.8 seconds). In terms of handling and dynamics, all the arrows are pointing in the right direction.

Interactive: Spin the Car

Anyone with the means and a desire to get away from it all should take a look at Porsche's redesigned Boxster S, which Dan Neil says is a ripping good time. Dan Neil/The Wall Street Jornal

Note, however, that the Boxster is not a car for the sedentary. The seats are low and the door opening fairly tight, making entry and exit a little challenging if the door isn't swung wide. I jumped over the door a couple of times.

The new Boxster's exterior styling is appreciably tougher, harder, with more lean muscle defined in subtle chamfering at the hood, fender wells, and front and rear bumper clips. There's more drama in the windshield rake. The whole thing seems to be clenching its jaw. Behind the integrated roll hoops, the convertible top folds Z-style, with the canvas forming the tonneau (an operation that takes 10 seconds at speeds up to 31 mph). Aft of the tonneau, the rear deck follows a lazy rainbow curve toward the integrated spoiler lip, a lapidary flourish edged in elegant chrome trim.

With every option Porsche could devise (how about adaptive magnetorheological transmission mounts—not even engine mounts, transmission mounts!) our silver metallic Boxster S test car went out the door for $88,720, a full $26,870 over the base sticker. Oof. Must be the altitude.

The 2013 engines are mildly revised versions of the previous flat-six powerplants. The base engine (2.7 liters) loses 0.2 liters of displacement yet gains 10 additional horsepower and 15%-better fuel economy. The Boxster S uses a rather unstressed version of the 3.4-liter used in the 911 Carrera, where it makes an additional 35 hp. The Boxster S's engine is nonetheless pretty fantastic. At low speeds, the engine is muzzled by its efficiency-minded electronic mapping. But when the revs rise and the variable intake and exhaust plumbing opens up, the car's sound gets big and emotional, a pristine, oiled-steel sibilance, a cavalry charge in silver horseshoes.

Unfortunately, the Boxster will not be available with the 911's unique seven-speed manual transmission. Because, cannibalism. The gearbox choices are the six-speed manual or the PDK seven-speed automated transmission, both impeccable. If we're talking about a three-year lease, I'd opt for the PDK transmission, which is both quicker and more livable. If it's just a month or two of Tyrolean misbehavior with my biographer, I'd prefer traditional stick-and-clutch biomechanics.

The take-away for 2013 is that, while the Boxster S isn't notably quicker in a straight line than before, the car stretches the metrics in several dynamic categories. The g-meter integrated into the instrument panel showed my test car was cornering comfortably at nearly 1-g on the 20-inch Pirellis. Thanks to larger brakes backed up with more-evolved smart-brake software, the car's stopping distances are shorter. The Boxster S slows up wondrously hard when it wants to.

On the other side of any particular corner, the car's computer-enhanced transaxle (mechanically locking rear differential with optional brake-based torque vectoring) allows drivers to get on the gas earlier, lightening the steering effort as cornering-exiting acceleration comes on line. With a feel like the electric-power-assist steering of the 911, the Boxster S's helming is light and a touch synthetic, but you can't question the results. The car just rips.

So bug out. Evac. Fall back. A driving vacation does a body a world of good. I won't tell. Your secret is safe with me.

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